Samuel Davidson

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SAMUEL DAVIDSON

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I

An address delivered at the commemorative exercises

when the monument was unveiled

September 25th, 1913

BY

F. A. SONDLEY, LL. D.

His Great-Great-Grandnephew

Samuel Davidson

By F. A. SONDLEY, LL. D.

His Great-Great-Grandnephew

<ly4n address delivered at the commemorative ex-
ercises when the monument v(ras unveiled,
September 25th, 1913

Gift

(Porso.;'

INTRODUCTION

In August, 19 1 3, some relatives of Samuel David-
son erected at his grave on the mountain a stone bear-
ing the inscription, "Here Lies Samuel Davidson, First
White Settler of Western North Carolina, Killed Here
By The Cherokees, 1784." On the morning of Sep-
tember 25th, 1913, this monument was unveiled with
commemorative ceremonies. Honorable Theodore F.
Davidson, great-grand-nephew of Samuel Davidson,
presided at the meeting, and F. A. Sondley, LL. D.,
great-great-grand-nephew of Samuel Davidson, deliv-
ered the address. This address follows hereafter.

Clan Chattan is a celebrated confederation of
clans, or confederated clan, of the Scottish Highlands,
founded in the reign of David I of Scotland, commonly
called Saint David, (i 124- 11 53), and is composed of
the clans or septs of Macintosh, MacPherson, Mac-
Bean, MacDuff, MacGillivray, MacQueen, MacDhai
(or Davidson), Shaw, Farquharson and five others.
Its emblem is the boxwood and, later adopted, also the
red whortleberry, and its battle-cry is "Creag dhubh
chloinn ChatJiin" (The black craig of Clan Chattan).
In several editions of the Waverley Novels a cut of its
coat of arms is placed at the head of the preface to
The Fair Maid of Perth. This coat of arms bears the
motto of the clan, "Touch not the cat but a glove," and
two cats rampant. Every of the confederated septs has

its own tartan. That of the Davidsons may be found
in "The Scottish Clans and Their Tartans." Clan
Chattan derived its name from that of its founder and
first chief, Gillecattan Mohr (Gillecattan the Great).
Gillecattan is a GaeHc name signifying "Follower of
Saint Cattan," a once popular Scottish saint. Cattan
means a little cat or a kitten. It is manifest that the
coat of arms of the clan, as well as its motto, has ref-
erence to the signification of the name of the confed-
eration, Clan Chattan.

Daniel Smith, who is referred to in the following
address, was the particular friend and hunting com-
panion of Samuel Davidson. He married Mary David-
son, daughter of Samuel Davidson's brother Colonel
William Davidson; and it is said, (how correctly can-
not now be known), that the wife of Samuel Davidson
was a sister of Daniel Smith. Prominent among the
men who came over the mountains to avenge the death
of Samuel Davidson, as mentioned in the address,
which follows, was this Daniel Smith. He became
Colonel Daniel Smith and was one of the first emi-
grants to Western North Carolina. His residence
stood on the hillside immediately east of the railroad
and directly north of the first small branch which runs
into the French Broad River above the Passenger Sta-
tion of the Southern Railway at Asheville, North Car-
olina. The site of his home is now within the cor-
porate limits of the City of Asheville. Here, on June
14th, 1787, was born his son James M. Smith, the first
white child born in North Carolina west of the Blue

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Ridge. Colonel Daniel Smith died at this place, and
was buried, with military honors, on a hill on his farm
at the spot where Fernihurst now is, overlooking the
French Broad and Swannanoa rivers and their junc-
tion. In 1875 his remains were removed to the bury-
ing ground at Newton Academy, just south of Ashe-
ville, where they now rest. His tombstone bears the
following inscription:

"In memory
of Col. Daniel Smith:
who departed this life
on the 17th May 1824
Aged 67.
"A native of New Jersey,
an industrious citizen,
an honest man,
and a brave soldier.
The soil which inurns his ashes
is part of the heritage
wrested by his valour
for his children and his country
from a ruthless and savage foe."

In later life Colonel Smith was almost daily seen
on the streets of Asheville mounted on his large white
horse. His hatred of the Cherokees never abated. At
the unveiling of this monument at the grave of Samuel
Davidson, Colonel Daniel Smith's old gun, carried by
him throughout the greater part of his life and used by
him in the attack on the Indians near the mouth of
Christian Creek, which followed the murder of Sam-
uel Davidson and is mentioned in the address, was
present, having been loaned for the occasion by his

grand-daughter, Mrs. Jane C. Spears. It was known
as "Long Tom," and many a Cherokee met his death
from its fiery discharge. This gun is as a smooth bore,
or musket, with flint lock and rifle sights, the bore being
a Httle larger than that of an ordinary fowling piece.
The length of the weapon is six feet, and that of the
barrel alone is fifty-six inches; while the stock, smaller
than usual at the butt, extends underneath the barrel
clear to the muzzle. "Long Tom" was capable of car-
rying a large ball or several shot, and was a most
formidable engine of destruction.

Samuel Davidson's daughter, whose escape with
her mother at the time when her father was killed was
almost miraculous, bore the name of Ruth. She
reached womanhood and married ; and many of her
descendants are now living in different parts of the
world.

F. A. S.

Since the address by Dr. Sondley, and his note of
introduction were sent to the printer, I received from
Hon. J. L. C. Bird, of Marion, N. C, a most interest-
ing letter, from which I make extracts and
have them printed with this paper. The facts stated
by Mr. Bird — who is related to the Samuel Davidson
branch of that family — are not only most interesting
to all who have interest in the early history of Western
North Carolina, but invaluable to the descendants of
Samuel Davidson, the subject of Dr. Sondley's address.

I have no doubt that Ruth, the daughter of Samuel,

was reared in the home of her uncle, Maj. William
Davidson, who resided at that time on his plantation
known as "The Glades," between Old Fort and Pleas-
ant Gardens. He and Samuel were twin brothers. I
heard years ago from an aged relative this tradition.
William had a daughter also named Ruth, who married
Joshua Williams and emigrated to Middle Tennessee,
near Columbia, where she died, leaving numerous des-
cendants.

Thomas O. Morris, Esq., of Obion, Tenn., a prom-
inent lawyer and citizen, is a direct lineal descendant
of Samuel Davidson.

THEO. F. DAVIDSON.

Asheville, N. C, Oct. lo, 1913.

October 9th, 19 13.
Hon. Theodore F. Davidson,

Asheville, North Carolina.
My Dear General: —

Your estemed favor of the 8th inst. has been re-
ceived, and contents carefully considered.

When the monument was unveiled to Samuel Da-
vidson, on September 25th, I was engaged in our
court and could not get away. I regretted very much
not being able to be present.

(i) I do not know the date of the death of Sam-
uel Davidson. Before he moved to Buncombe county,
he lived on the plantation where I was born, and my
great-grandfather bought it from him. He also bought
another place, adjoining from John Davidson. John

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Davidson, who married Mary Brevard, was murdered,
with his wife and children, on this farm. See Wheel-
er's North Carolina Sketches, at page 238. I have seen
the old house where they lived, or one built on the same
spot, and know where the graves are located, some
seventy-five yards from where they were killed. I do
not know what relation this John Davidson was to
Samuel Davidson. There was another Davidson,
whose name I never heard, who lived two miles lower
down on the river Catawba, and I have always heard
that Ruth Davidson, after the death of her father, lived
with this man, and was married from his house.

(2) I do not know of, nor did I ever hear of any
other children of Samuel Davidson, except Ruth.
When I was quite a boy, I have heard an old, old negro
woman, who belonged to my grandfather talk about
the Indians killing this John Davidson family, and
Samuel Davidson across the mountains, but I did not
remember the given name of Samuel. I have also
heard that the mother brought her child through the
woods back to civilization.

(3) When Ruth Davidson was born, or when she
married, I do not know. She died in 1826. She was
married to James Wilson. James Wilson was a son
of Thomas Wilson, who came to this county in 1769
from Fermanaugh county, Ireland, with his wife and
seven sons. This Thomas Wilson married the sister
of Col. John Carson, and Col. Carson came over with
his brother-in-law. This man, Thomas Wilson, is the
same "Read-headed Irishman," who Draper, in
King's Mountain and its Heroes, says sold his cattle to

. 8

Col. Tarlton, when on his raid through this part of the
county, and took a draft on the EngHsh Government.
The draft was never paid, and I am of the opinion that
it is in the possession of Miss Ethel Page, of Nashville,
Tennessee, a descendant of old man Wilson. Two of
the sons of this Thomas Wilson, Thomas and William,
were the first representatives from Burke county in
the Legislature. James Wilson married Ruth David-
son; he moved to near Brentwood, Tennessee, about
1790, but whether he was married when he left the
State, I do not know. He died in 1838.

(a) Joseph McDowell Carson, the oldest son of
Col. John Carson and wife, Rachel McDowell, a
daughter of Hunting John McDowell and a sister of
Col. Joseph McDowell, married Rebecca Wilson, a
daughter of James Wilson and Ruth Davidson. Mrs,
Frank Coxe is a great-grand daughter of Ruth Wilson,
and Col. Ralph Carson a great-grandson. Besides,
there are a number of others.

(b) Charles Carson, the second son of Col. John
Carson, married Margaret Wilson, a daughter of Ruth
Davidson Wilson. I do not know anything about their
descendants, as they moved to Tennessee soon after
marriage, or rather, they were married in Tennessee.

(c) Samuel P. Carson, the oldest son of Col. John
Carson, by his second marriage (his wife being Mary
Moffett, the widow of Col. Joseph McDowell), on
May loth, 183 1, married Katherine Wilson, a daugh-
ter of James Wilson and Ruth Davidson. They had
only one child, Rebecca, who married Dr. J. McD.
Whitson, who moved to Talledega, Alabama. Their

son, Charles Carson Whitson, was a very distinguished
lawyer, and who died only a year or two ago. After
the death of Samuel P. Carson, his widow, Katherine,
married William M. Carson, another son of Col. John
Carson, by his second wife. She had two children by
this union, Katherine, who married John P. Gorman,
and Geo. S. Carson^ who died in 1887. Mrs. John H.
Gorman, of Salisbury, a daughter of Mrs. Katherine
Gorman, is a woman of great beauty.

(d) James Wilson and Ruth Davidson had other
children, and their descendants live in Tennessee,
Texas and other Western states. Col. James Wilson,
one of them, married the sister of Gen. Zollicoffer,
and she lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Col. Wm. M,
Wilson, another, was the wealthiest man, and its most
progressive citizen, of Obion, Tennessee. He died
only a few months ago. There are many more, but
my time is limited this morning, and I can not run
through the mass of letters and other material, so as
to give you all of the information. They are in almost
every walk of life, and a number of them have been
distinguished.

Miss Mattie Brunson, of Florence, South Carolina,
a great-great-grand daughter of Ruth Davidson, from
whom I obtained a considerable amount of my infor-
mation, and who has taken a great interest in the his-
tory of her ancestors, knows more than any person I
know of.

Your friend,

J. L. C. BIRD.

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ADDRESS

My Fellow Mountaineers:

At the close of the Revolutionary War the terri-
tory which now comprises North Carolina west of the
Blue Ridge was claimed by the Cherokees as tribal
hunting grounds. Other Indians, and sometimes even
white men hunted occasionally within these confines
without arousing violent antagonism on the part of the
Cherokees. The latter seemed usually to regard such
acts as harmless trespasses, to be overlooked under or-
dinary circumstancs. A settlement on the land they
viewed in quite another light. It was a serious matter,
and called for prompt resistance and extreme action.
When the white settler came he came to stay and others
followed him. His personal habits and methods of
maintenance had been modified by his surroundings
and assimilated to those of the native red man. But
his passion for individual ownership of the soil, inher-
ited from his European forefathers and permeating his
being and dominating his existence, he held, with vital
tenacity, as the fundamental principle of his character.
Such men soon destroyed the game in their vicinity,
and at once appropriated large portions of the country.
Then the Indian was compelled to retire. His occupa-
tion, pastime, comfort and subsistence were all depend-
ent upon an abundance of wild animals. Hunting was
to him at once business, support, education and recre-
ation. Without game he had nothing to live for and no
means of livelihood. A neighborhood of whites meant
his early expulsion. He had come to realize this from
repeated and disastrous experiences.

There were no Indian towns in this region east of

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the Tuckaseigee river. The home of the Cherokee was
in the lowlands. But every year, during the hunting
period, small parties of Cherokees scattered over this
extensive area and built their camps near convenient
trails, in the proximity of springs and small streams,
on low parts of dry ridges, where game abounded.
Here they remained for months at a time, collecting
supplies of meat for their needs until the next hunting
season and of skins with which to clothe themselves
and purchase from white traders knives, hatchets, axes,
guns, traps, ammunition and other useful articles for
their own wants and trinkets and ornaments for their
women. When this had been accomplished, they re-
turned to their homes and were honored in proportion
to their success. Thus, to them everything centred
about their hunting grounds ; and pleasure, honor, and
even life itself depended on preserving these from ap-
propriation by the ever aggressive whites.

To these whites the matter was different. Even
such of them as lived by hunting preferred to reside
near the fields of their labors. Land on which the
white men dwelt must be his exclusively. The Indian
must keep off, even if he had camped and hunted there
from the days of his boyhood. Surveyors had hacked
line-marks upon the trees, and these he must not pass.

In times which preceded the war, the Cherokees
were often friends of the French, who encouraged
them to commit depredations upon the settlers and
persuaded them that the intention of the latter was to
drive them from the home of their fathers and the
scenes of their childhood. Throughout the war the
Cherokees had been allies of the British and unrelent-
ing and cruel adversaries of the white Americans.
With the Indian hostility is hereditary. His father's
enemy is his enemy. War on such an enemy is a duty.
Peace with him is dishonor. White boys and Cherokee

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boys had grown up on adjoining territories, schooled in
mutual suspicion, hatred and contempt. Cherished
grievances were to be avenged by each on the other.
Each had genuine wrongs to be redressed, and neither
comprehended redress not achieved through violence.

The war was now over. But the hatreds which it
had engendered and the injuries which it had inflicted
were not to be forgotten at the bidding of diplomatists
nor obscured in the stipulations of treaties. To the
white man an Indian was still a treacherous and mur-
derous savage. To the Indian a white man was still a
cunning and uncompromising robber. To each the
wrongs of centuries were crying for revenge.

The Cherokee still deemed the limits of white en-
croachment those established by authority in the days
of British rule. The settler regarded these lines as
something determined by his foes among themselves —
by the British and these Cherokees, who but a short
time thereafter had united in the long and bloody war
against his people and himself. As results of agree-
ments between his allied enemies, he could not under-
stand how such restrictions could be, in any way, more
binding upon him than the British laws which he had
repudiated or the foreign domination which he had dis-
carded.

These limits had been supposed to lie along the crest
of the Blue Ridge. White settlements had long ago
reached the eastern foot of the mountains when further
extension thereof was prohibited by the laws in force
when the war began. But these were a part of the
laws which the settlers had rejected as having been
enacted without their consent and as being injurious
and tyrannous to them — laws their freedom from
which they had secured in the long struggle just ended
— laws which the Cherokees had combined with the
British in an unavailing effort to fasten on them. It is

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not at all strange that, under these circumstances, the
backwoodsmen esteemed themselves absolved from all
compacts entered into by the royal authorities and
free to do what those authorities themselves had not
hesitated to practise when they, from time to time,
took from the Indians, whenever they could, all the
land available for their purposes.

Among those who, before the war, had settled upon
the Catawba frontier at the foot of the Blue Ridge
were members of the family of Davidson. They had
no reason to reverence British laws and treaties.
These had oppressed them in Europe and America and,
with frequent wrongs, had dogged their steps from
Ireland to North Carolina. All of them had sided
with the Americans in asserting independence of these;
and in the war which ensued none had fought more
bravely or suffered more severely than they. One of
their number had given his life at Cowan's Ford in
opposing the advance of a British army designed to
subjugate North Carolina and other Southern states,
and others had endured greatest hardships in resist-
ing, without intermission, throughout that entire con-
test, aggressions of British troops.

Nor had that family reason to regard the Cherokees
with favor. Living on the advance outskirts of white
occupation, they had been exposed, for many years, to
the incursions and depredations of these savages ; and,
during all that time, had protected their lives and
property by quick recourse to their ever ready rifles.
Only about eight years before, one of their number
had been massacred with his family on his own prem-
ises at Old Fort by these implacable barbarians, and
others of them had been forced to flee for safety and
leave their homes to be plundered by the invaders.
Surely these Davidsons could not be expected to ob-
serve the limits of country claimed by the Indians

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when these same Indians had, in a way so brutal and
vindictive, shown their own utter disregard of those
Hmits.

The Davidsons were descendants of the Highland
Clan Davidson, a clan the date and source of whose
origin, like those of many other clans of the Highlands
of Scotland, are somewhat uncertain. The termination
of the name in the word "son," seems to point to a
Scandinavian ancestry. Such, in part at least, is most
probably the fact; for in the early days of the Middle
Ages the relations betyeen the Norse and the inhabi-
tants of Scotland were very close. Extensive settle-
ments of the Northmen were made at that time on the
main land and islands of Scotland and intermarriages
between the two peoples were not uncommon in that
day.

The Davidsons — sons of a David (a Hebrew name
meaning Beloved) — were usually known among their
neighbors in Scotland by the Gaelic equivalent of Mac-
Dhais. In speaking of the Macintoshes, an author on
Highland history says :

"The old genealogy (of 1450) makes them descend
from two brothers Muirach Mohr and Dhai Dhu, sons
of Gillecattan Mohr, chief of the Confederation (Clan
Chattan). MacPherson of Cluny as the lineal repre-
sentative is chief of Muirach Mohr and is chief of
Clan Mhuirach, or MacPherson, says a writer in the
'Scottish Journal of Antiquities :' Dhai Dhu, brother of
Muirach Mohr and second son of Gillecattan, left is-
sue who are represented by Davidson of Ivernahaven.
The descendants of Dhai Dhu are called Clan Dhai or
Davidsons. They are the Clan Kay of Sir Walter
Scott and Inch of Perth celebrity (1396). The des-
cendants of Muirach Mohr are called the Clan Muirach
or MacPhersons."*

*The Scottish Clans and Their Tartans, 53.

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The famous battle between these two kindred tribes,
fought on the North Inch of Perth in the latter part
of the fourteenth century by representative warriors
chosen from each, is familiar to all readers of Sir
Walter Scott's novel The Fair Maid of Perth and to
all students of Scotch history.

Dhai Dhu means Black David, or David the
Swarthy. And it is from this Black David, son of
Gillecattan Mohr, or Gillecattan the Great, founder and
chief of the Highland confederation Clan Chattan,
that the Davidsons derive both their lineage and their
name.

Many of the Davidsons emigrated to northern Ire-
land in the time of King James I. of Great Britain ; but
in the days of William and Mary oppressive legisla-
tion of the British Parliament, intended to destroy
their business, drove numerous descendants of these
emigrants to seek new homes in America. Some es-
tablished themselves in southern Pennsylvania on the
Maryland border. But ill fate pursued them there.
The government of the Pennsylvania province was then
in the hands of selfish, money-loving, puritanical
Quakers, who sought to thrive at the expense of neigh-
bors the prosperity of whom they envied. Over por-
tions of that province and adjoining districts roamed
bands of hostile aborigines. These proved most
troublesome to the new-comers from Ireland residing
on the frontiers and committed many robberies and
murders among them. Such outrages became intoler-
able. The Quakers, who inhabited the interior, and,
because of their secure position, enjoyed immunity
from the irruptions against which their more exposed
neighbors afforded them protection, posed as the
friends of the Indians, and not only refused to allow
the assistance of the colonial government to be ex-

i6

tended to the newcomers when they earnestly peti-
tioned for it, but even visited on the petitioners the
denunciation and persecution of that government when
they protected themselves and their ungrateful Quaker
oppressors at the same time from these marauders and
murderers. Disgusted with such hypocrisy and injus-
tice on the part of those who should have been their
friends and associates, numbers of these Irish emi-
grants left this "land of brotherly love" ( !), to which
they had been seductively invited, and settled at last in
North Carolina and South Carolina. The tide of emi-
gration to the South carried on its waves not a few of
these Davidsons. Many of them took up their abodes
on Catawba river in North Carolina and soon were to
be found on the extreme verge of the Catawba settle-
ments.

When the War of the Revolution began some of
these Davidsons owned and were living at what after-
wards was called Old Fort at the head of the Catawba
river. It was here that, about 1776, the Cherokees
killed John Davidson and his family, who were mem-
bers of this advanced outpost community, only an ab-
sent daughter escaping.

When the war had ended Samuel Davidson, a
brother of this John Davidson and a son of John
Davidson, Senior, and a first cousin of General Wil-
liam Davidson the hero of Cowan's Ford, in company
with some of his adventurous friends and relatives, be-
gan to make occasional hunting trips over the moun-
tains, on the Swannanoa and its tributaries. Samuel
Davidson was born in southern Pennsylvania about the
year 1736 and came with his father to North Carolina
in 1750. He grew up in the southern part of Iredell
county, then in Rowan county. He was independent,
self-reliant and fearless.

The Cherokees had no love for these Davidsons

17

and the Davidsons had no love for the Cherokees.
They watched each other with unfriendly observation.
A few encounters seem to have occurred between the
Indians and these hunters. The country, however, was
attractive, and Samuel Davidson determined to make it
his home. This resolution appears to have found its
inspiration in that mysterious principle of human na-
ture which has impelled so many men to abandon the
society of their fellows and plunge into the seclusion of
the wilderness, a principle invoked in after years by
one of the greatest of the poets :

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea ; and music in its roar.
I love not man the less but nature more
From these our interviews in which I steal
From all I may be or have been before
To mingle with the universe and feel
What I can ne'er express yet cannot all conceal."

After two or three years Samuel Davidson crossed
the Swannanoa Gap with his family, consisting of his
wife and child, and a female negro servant, and estab-
lished his residence on Christian Creek, a tributary of
the Swannanoa, at the foot of the mountain which sep-
arates the waters of that creek from the Swannanoa
itself. Here he remained for a short while. This
seems to have been in the fall of 1784. As was the cus-
tom in those days, he turned his horse loose at night,
knowing that before morning the animal would find
food enough to maintain it throughout the next day and
that he could easily find it when wanted.

One morning he started at an early hour in search
of the horse. The Indian trail leading from the Cher-
okee towns on the Tennessee river across the French

18

Broad and up the Swannanoa through Swannanoa Gap
to Catawba and Yadkin rivers, ran along the crest of
the ridge at the foot of which his habitation stood. It
was the only passway through this mountain wild. In
searching for the horse, he passed up the side of this
mountain in the direction of this trail. Just as he
reached the trails he was fired upon and killed by some
Cherokees in ambush there. It is said that, in order
to find his horse more readily, he was accustomed to
attach a cow bell about its neck when turning it out at
night, and that the Cherokees detached the bell or
drove the horse up the mountain when they saw him
set out in the quest, and that thus, by means of the
bell, they lured him on under the supposition that he
was following the horse, until he came to the place
where a body of them were lying in wait to kill him.
Unaided and alone, he braved the anger of a nation's
warriors, and when he fell it was beneath the missiles
of a hidden foe.

His wife heard the shots and knew that she could
render no assistance to him then. Taking her little girl
with her, she and the negro woman went through the
mountains, by dififerent ways, to Old Fort. They ar-
rived at that place in safety, after a journey of fifteen
or sixteen miles among the woods and rocks. Here she
found friends and relatives of her husband and her-
self.

At Old Fort a party was at once organized to
avenge the murder. They came to the place where
Samuel Davidson had been slain. His body lay by the
side of the path where he had fallen. They buried him
there in a shallow grave which they briefly prepared to
receive his remains.

"No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud they wound him,

19

But he lay, like a warrior, taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

"Slowly and sadly they laid him down
From the field of his fame fresh and gory,
They carved not a line and they raised not a stone.
But they left him alone with his glory."

And undisturbed for more than one hundred and
twenty-eight years, on that lone spot in the land which
he loved, this grave still holds the dust of him whose
enterprise and intrepidity led to the settlement of the
now famous Land of the Sky and justly earned for him
the designation of The Founder of Western North
Carolina and Buncombe's Earliest Citizen. From his
silent seat on this elevated point, while the decades
rolled away, the spirit of the old pioneer has kept its
tireless vigils and watched over this land of the moun-
tains as the tide of immigration poured in his tracks
down the Swannanoa and over the hills and valleys
beyond, until in that fair land the Indians have
disappeared forever from the forests, telegraphs and
telephones have supplanted signal smokes, the roar of
the automobile and the shriek of the locomotive have
replaced the howl of the wolf and the scream of the
panther, and cities and' towns flash out their electric
lights where his solitary camp-fires had burned in the
woodlands.

"Oh a wonderful stream is the river of Time
As it runs through the realm of tears.
With a musical rhythm, a magical rhyme,
A boundless sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the ocean of years!"

That interment did not constitute the entire self-
imposed task of the expedition. Versed in the habits
of the Cherokees, they concluded, no doubt, that the

20

assassins were a hunting party who were encamped
not far away. About a mile further to the West they
discovered these Indians near the mouth of Christian
Creek and drove them into the recesses of the solitudes,
killing some and dispersing the band.

In that attack no piece rang out more frequently or
sent its echoes, in deep reverberations, further up the
ravines that did Long Tom in the hands of its owner,
Colonel Daniel Smith, the relation and companion of
him whose fate at that time met its retribution. And
this is Long Tom.

(Exhibits the gun.)

Many and eventful have been the years that have
come out of eternity and then sunk into eternity again
since this old gun was at this place before and on that
memorable day gave forth its vengeful peals in fierce
reiteration among the glens and gorges of Rockhouse
and Christian Creeks ! It belongs to an age that is
gone, and it stays but to tell of the days and the events,
the people and the customs, the trials and the triumphs
of the long, long ago.

After a few months had passed, other frontiersmen
came from the Catawba near Old Fort, through the
Swannanoa Gap, and formed a settlement around the
mouth of Bee Tree Creek, within two or three miles of
the locality where Samuel Davidson was buried. This
became known in history as the "Swannanoa Settle-
ments." It was the first colony of whites in what is
now North Carolina West of the Blue Ridge.

Among these colonists were a twin brother of Sam-
uel Davidson, Colonel William Davidson, subsequently
Buncombe's first State Senator, and a sister, Rachel
Alexander, and their families and other relatives.
These kinsmen looked after the sepulchre of Samuel
Davidson as long as they lived, and when they were
gone, William Davidson's son, Colonel Samuel W. Da-

21

vidson, who was a small child when the settlement was
founded, continued throughout his life to care for the
last resting-place of his worthy uncle. The letters
"S. D." were cut in a pine tree which stood at the
head of the grave; and Samuel W. Davidson always
kept these letters freshened, in order that they might
not become obscured by the accretion of moss or the
growth of the tree. Samuel W. Davidson died in 1858,
and then the old pine tree died and rotted away. But
other kindred took up the work and have never ceased
to protect the grave of the founder of the Land of the
Sky.

Now we have placed at this grave a monument of
more durable material than the pine. It may honor
us and tell the stranger where he sleeps, but Samuel
Davidson needs no monument while the towering peaks
of Western North Carolina point upward to the sky
and the Swannanoa rolls in beauty its waters toward
the sea. His memory, like the pine, will flourish in
perpetual verdure and, like the granite, will last while
time endures.

"Yon sturdy minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless song shall tell,
When many a vanished year hath flown,
The story how he fell ;
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,
Nor time's remorseless doom,
Can dim one ray of holy light
That gilds his glorious tomb."

22

OCT 24 1913

LiBRftRY OF CONGRESS

014 417 940